Analysis of Virginia's policies

Providing comprehensive reporting may be the state's most important role for ensuring the equitable distribution of teachers among schools. Virginia reports little school-level data that can help support the equitable distribution of teacher talent.

Virginia does not require districts to publicly report aggregate school-level data about teacher performance, nor does the state collect and publicly report most of the other data recommended by NCTQ. Virginia does not provide a school-level teacher-quality index that demonstrates the academic backgrounds of a school's teachers and the ratio of new to veteran teachers. The state also does not report on teacher absenteeism or turnover rates.

Virginia does report on the percentage of highly qualified teachers. These data are reported for each school, rather than aggregated by district. The state also compares the percentage of highly qualified teachers at high- and low-poverty schools. Virginia's Equity Plan, updated annually since 2009, includes recent data about years of teaching experience.

Virginia's most recent Equity Plan was approved by the U.S. Department of Education in October 2015. It appears to further address the components contained in this goal.

Recommendations for Virginia

Report school-level teacher effectiveness data. Virginia should make
aggregate school-level data about teacher performance—from an evaluation
system based on instructional effectiveness—publicly available.
Given that Virginia now requires teacher evaluations to be based to a significant extent on evidence of student learning (see "Evaluation of Effectiveness" analysis and recommendations), such data about the effectiveness of a school's teachers can shine a light on how equitably teachers are distributed across and within school districts.

Publish other data that facilitate comparisons across schools. Virginia should collect and report other school-level data that reflect the stability of a school's faculty, including the rates of teacher absenteeism and turnover.

Provide comparative data based on school demographics.As Virginia does with highly qualified teachers, the state should provide comparative data for schools with similar poverty and minority populations. This would yield a more comprehensive picture of gaps in the equitable distribution of teachers.

Ensure that ideas outlined in the Equity Plan evolve into state policy. Virginia's 2015 Equity Plan outlines the state's intention to further report on the equitable distribution of its teachers throughout the state. However, because adherence is voluntary, Virginia is strongly encouraged to follow through with its public reporting plan.

Exiting Ineffective Teachers

Pensions

How we graded

Research rationale

Distribution data
should show more than just teachers' years of experience and highly qualified
status.Transparency is one of the most important tools states have to promote the equitable distribution of teachers within and across higher and lower-need schools and districts. States generally report publicly little more than
what is mandated by federal requirements, which highlights years of experience
and highly-qualified status. However, while teaching experience matters, the benefits of
experience are largely accumulated within the first few years of teaching.
School districts that try to equalize experience among all schools are
overestimating its impact. There is no reason why a school with many teachers
with only three or five years' experience cannot outperform a school with
teachers who have an average of more than 10 years' experience.

For this reason, states need to report data that are more
informative about a school's teachers. As more states require evaluation
systems based primarily on teacher effectiveness , the most
important distribution data that a state can make available is school-level data
about teacher performance. This is not
to say that individual teacher ratings should be reported, but school level
data would shine an important light on whether all students have access to
effective teachers.

In the absence of teacher performance data that reflect evidence of student learning, states can still provide meaningful information by
using an index for quantifying important teacher credentials found to correlate
with student achievement. A good example of a strong index is the academic
capital index developed by the Illinois Education Research Council,
incorporating teachers' average SAT or ACT scores; the percentage of teachers
failing basic skills licensure test at least once; the percentage of teachers
on emergency credentials; average selectivity of teachers' undergraduate
colleges and the percentage of new teachers. These factors are complicated, so
the state should install a system that translates them into something more
easily understood, such as a color-coded matrix indicating a high or low score
for a school.

States need to report
data at the level of the individual school.
Only by achieving greater stability in the staffing of
individual schools can districts achieve the nation's goal of more equitable distribution
of teacher quality. A strong reporting system reflecting effectiveness data and/or the index described
above, as well as data on teacher attrition, teacher absenteeism and teacher
credentials can lend much-needed transparency to those factors that contribute
to staffing instability and inequity.

The lack of such data feeds a misconception that all
high-poverty schools are similarly unable to retain staff because of their
demographics. If collected and disaggregated to the level of the individual
school, however, such data could shift the focus of districts and states toward
the quality of leadership at the school level and away from the notion that
instability and inequity are unavoidable consequences of poverty and race.
Variations in staff stability are considerable among schools with similar numbers of
poor and/or minority children. School culture, largely determined by school
leadership, contributes greatly to teacher morale, which in turn affects
teacher success and student achievement. By revealing these variations among schools
facing the same challenges, school leadership can be held accountable—and
rewarded when successful.

Within-district comparisons are crucial in order to control
for as many elements specific to a district as possible, such as a collective
bargaining agreement (or the district's personnel policies) and the amount of
resources.